


Misadventures as an Interdimensional Fugitive

by livinginthetheater



Category: Lab Rats (TV 2012)
Genre: Bromance, Brotherly Angst, Brotherly Love, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, No Romance, No Slash, Sibling Love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-02-23
Updated: 2020-07-19
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:21:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23850730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/livinginthetheater/pseuds/livinginthetheater
Summary: Leo Dooley has always felt like the odd one out with his siblings he loves so much, but when Leo's life is put in terrible danger (unbeknownst to everyone) how will Leo solve a problem he's determined to suffer through alone?I am obsessed with the fact that they never revisited the fact that Leo traveled to an alternate dimension and no one believed him, so this is a fic to explore mainly the friendship between Leo and Chase specifically, and paints Leo in a more self-deprecating, but self-relied light
Relationships: Adam Davenport/Leo Dooley, Bree Davenport & Leo Dooley, Chase Davenport & Leo Dooley, Marcus Davenport/Leo Dooley
Comments: 17
Kudos: 56





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I know the tags have slash, but it was strange because there were no tags for some of them without (???) I couldn't enter my own and I'm kind of limited on my phone lol so bare with me.
> 
> There's no slash, its mostly angst and brotherly fluff :)

It had taken a long time for the three bionic siblings in his basement to take Leo seriously. He could recall with a certain disdain, several moments in his life with them where they disregarded him or his ideas. It was fine, they were Adam, Bree, and Chase. Adam, Bree, and Chase Davenport, specifically. And, of course, he was Leo Dooley. Not Leo Davenport. Maybe he could be, after all it was his mother who changed her name. And Dooley was his mom’s maiden name, so what was he holding on to? His grandparents? 

Regardless, Leo always understood when they didn’t believe him. It was a fact of life, the Davenports were interesting, intelligent, and important. The Dooley’s were… funny. They were hilarious. Also slightly crazy, and definitely annoying, but in a charming way. Grandma Rose was the pinnacle of being a Dooley. She was very funny. And very annoying.

Tasha was not. She was a Dooley, but only to honor her parents. She could be funny, and definitely annoying, but it wasn’t her. She was responsible, in charge. She took control. Dooleys do not take control. Leo hardly ever commanded a room. 

Meeting the bionic three was the cherry on the top of the funny, annoying, Dooley coffin. Three people, three Davenports, who were incredible. Inventive. Now, his mother would be a Davenport. It fit her, she was interesting, intelligent, important, and incredible. And Leo was funny. He was annoying, and hilarious. He was Leo Dooley. A Dooley in a house of Davenports. He was outnumbered, and unimportant.

Leo didn't mind these differences. Adam, Bree, and Chase were his siblings. His sister. His brothers. His.

But that didn’t matter, because Leo was still Leo. And it took them years to take him seriously. But how could he blame them? He was a Dooley. 

Perhaps the worst of the incidents that they did not believe was earlier in his life, when he was sucked into a parallel universe. He came back, seconds after he left, to a family that loved him, but thought he was very funny. No one believed he had been there. So he was the only one who remembered demure Donald Davenport, artistic Adam, blunt Bree, and challenging Chase. No one else was there, to see Tasha Davenport be the most Davenport she could be, while actually being a Dooley. No one got to see Donald Davenport be the most Dooley he could ever be, because he was funny, and extremely annoying.

Leo thought of this world often. Unlike everything else they disregarded, Leo’s time in a parallel universe was perhaps the most significant. Most other situations, Leo would either be proven right, or he’d be proven wrong. It would have a happy or upsetting conclusion, but a conclusion nonetheless. But visiting the other world never had an ending.

Leo was now seventeen. It had been three years. And every so often in those years, he would think about bringing up the alternate Mission Creek. Tell Davenport that he actually had mastered interdimensional travel. After all, he would never know that he actually proved alternate realities exist, because he didn’t believe Leo when he initially tried to tell them. It felt strange, to know something that was so cool and important, when he was the only one who knew about it. 

A Dooley. A Dooley had been the only one, in a house of Davenports, to travel between dimensions. A Dooley in a house of Davenports was the only one who knew parallel worlds were real, because it was a Dooley in a house of Davenports who got hands on experience running from the FBI and fixing a proton fuser.

On several different occasions, Leo wondered if he should tell them. After all, with time passing, he would be able to tell them and have them believe him, after all, why would he lie about that, especially after time had passed?

After Friday night, Leo would be thrilled that he didn’t say a word. He would be the most grateful he had ever been for keeping his big mouth shut.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Leo begins to get sick, but he's hiding it from his family

It took Leo a while to get his footing Saturday morning. He was back in the lab, exactly where he had been just hours before. He grabbed at the skin on his arms, as if he needed evidence he was still here, existing. After the night he had, it made sense.

He collapsed into his swivel chair by his desk. He looked back at the three empty capsules and sighed with relief. Explaining why he randomly materialized out of thin air in the lab would be very difficult. But not as difficult as it would be to explain why he was doing what he was doing next. He looked at his reflection in the black screen of his computer, and he slammed his fists on the desk, leaving a dent with his bionic hand. He froze for a moment, before burying his face in his arms, sobbing like a child.

Leo hadn’t cried this much in a while, but he feared he would never cry this much again. He let himself cry. 

He knew that the Davenports were upstairs, being intelligent and important. But Leo Dooley was alone, crying. He was not a Davenport. A Davenport would rush upstairs and tell his family what happened, he’d tell them all about the monster, and the poison, and the android. He would receive a reassuring pat on the shoulder from one brother, and a nod of trust and solidarity from the other. It didn’t matter which one would do which. A Davenport would feel comforted and seen. A Davenport would face this challenge with bravery and optimism.

But this took a Dooley. Because Leo knew the odds. He knew every way that this could or would end. A Davenport would involve other Davenports, fill them and himself with false hope, only to crash and burn. A Dooley would smile and pretend everything was alright, so that it would be, until it wouldn’t. And then, a Dooley would smile his way out, exit stage left, and leave minimal damage. The Davenports would suffer loudly, together. A Dooley will suffer quietly, alone.

Leo snapped out of his fit in time to hear footsteps coming from the tunnel. One pair heavy, one light. By the time Adam and Bree saw Leo, he was smiling, no trace of Dooley on his face.

Bree’s eyes widened, lighter. A relief that was minimal, belonging to someone who was only a little anxious. “Leo! Where have you been?”

“Yeah you missed breakfast buddy!” Adam walked over and slung an arm over Leo’s shoulders. The greeting of someone who was a little anxious, with a relief that was minimal. Leo could deduce that it must be before 10 AM, because anytime after that might have warranted more fear from his family, a normal amount of relief, from a growing anxiety. This was good, it meant he didn’t have to work too hard to explain his whereabouts, because they hadn’t exactly been looking yet.

Leo tried to re-ground himself. He was here. In the lab. He had a lot he needed to keep track of now, but he had time before he needed to address anything bad head on. “I woke up early and went for a walk,” he feigned an embarrassed look. ‘I was out later than I thought, so I just slipped into the lab through the garage.”

Short, concise, and to the point. Adam and Bree didn’t need to share any unsure glances because it made sense. Leo wanted it to. No questions, no suspicions. Just two Davenports, smiling at him, happy there wouldn’t be any unresolved tension or drama. No life-shattering news and fears, just a happy Dooley who missed his morning cereal.

He took the long way upstairs, while Adam and Bree took the elevator. He wanted to avoid the light cheery conversation that he would be promised were he to spend any more time with them. He loved his family, of course he did. And soon, he knew he would want to spend all of his time conscious and breathing with them. After all, his whole life was put into perspective now.

He fed Big D, Chase, and his mom the same lies he fed Adam and Bree. Just like them, it was an easy pill to swallow and ended with contented smiles all around.

Saturday went by without a hitch. He smiled until his brain was convinced he was happy and he slept. A lot. He needed to catch up. Sunday was when the problems started occurring.

He was leaving his room to get breakfast when he coughed. A cough wasn’t particularly out of the ordinary, but when the cough had left him, he felt fire in his body. A deep, clawing urge within his stomach and lungs. He could barely stand, and he stumbled and fell against the hallway wall. When the searing pain had left him, he felt ice run through his veins. This time it wasn’t the pain he was feeling, it was the paralyzing fear. He’d wasted so much time sleeping last night, why did he waste time sleeping? What would sleep do for him now?

He was conflicted between two strong desires. Well, more like three. One desire was to go out to the living room and act normal and be with his family. The second was to run back to the shelter of his bedroom and scream into his pillow, isolating himself so that he wouldn’t slip up in front of anyone. The third, most passionate desire, was to run out to the living room and curl up in his mother’s lap and cry. Be the most Dooley he possibly could and give in to his panic and fear and devastation. Davenports would flock around him, concerned and determined to fix any and every problem Leo was facing.

But that wouldn’t happen. He could never let that happen. He wanted them, so desperately, to see through his facade and hug him and tell him he would be fine as long as he was with them.

Instead Leo went out to the living room and spoke and laughed like he would if nothing were happening. No more coughing, no more fire, and no more ice.

*****

Each night, Leo had coughing fits. They got worse every single night, but he continued with his routine to ignore them regardless.

He would climb out of bed and almost in a trance wander to the living room, lie on the couch, and bury his head in the cushions and try to muffle his coughing. Fire would start from his lungs, burst out through his throat, and settle back into his shoulders, and sink through his body. It was a pain Leo had never felt before, he was unfamiliar with the sensations that were occurring. He thought it was probably akin to being burned alive, or swallowing a lit match that never burnt out. 

Thursday night met a head. Leo clambered out of his bedroom and to the couch. The coughing was longer, louder, and more desperate. His vision went black, and he could feel his body shaking with each bit of energy ripped from his body with his coughs.

For the first time however, Leo felt himself slipping into unconsciousness. It felt like he was falling through a crack in his life, everything felt twisted and wrong. 

The last thing he recognized as he tumbled downward into sleep was blood staining the corners of his mouth. He went limp, and barely felt two arms wrap around his stomach from above as he gave out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey i wrote this fic in middle school and thought I wanted to piblish it now that we're all quarantined... i haven't thought about lab rats in a long time but i thought this fic was cute so here are the first two chapters!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chase finds Leo in a disturbing situation, and Leo is forced to tell him the truth
> 
> (If you haven't read this in a long time, I suggest you go back to the beginning and reread so this makes sense, it's not very long so it won't take a while at all!)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I finally updated this story! I felt like it was time, and some of you guys seemed to actually enjoy it which I never expected in a million years that anyone would enjoy my middle school ramblings! Please reread from the beginning for clarity and previous writing references.

Chase had wandered upstairs through the tunnels. He couldn’t sleep. That was pretty parr for the course when it came to him, but something had been bugging him. Leo, specifically.

To be fair, Leo bugged him a lot. That was the Dooley of him, he was the annoying little brother.

Except, he wasn’t anymore.

He was his brother, and he loved him. And, yes, admittedly, Leo had his fair share of times where he was annoying. But most of those times were charming, funny mishaps that they all worked together to solve. When Adam, Bree, and Chase made charming, funny mishaps, they usually ended up with people getting hurt or put in grave danger, on a much higher scale than Leo’s mistakes ever did.

But what did that mean exactly? That Leo had matured over the years, or that Leo had never been as annoying as he used to believe? Leo was funny and dorky and he didn’t have any friends, but did that mean that the three bumbling bionic idiots who had never seen daylight before had the right to judge him? Because he was short and had a high-pitched voice?

Chase knew that Leo Dooley was a Dooley, and not a Davenport, but he didn’t know why. If anyone had proved they were dedicated to this family, it was him. Hell, Adam, Bree, and Chase had ditched him and the rest of the family on several different occasions, and for what? What purpose did that ever serve, besides further alienating Leo?

Leo had been acting weird for a week now. Last week, he missed breakfast. Leo never missed breakfast. And everyone around the table thought it didn’t mean anything, Mr. Davenport, Tasha, even his own siblings. They all brushed it off and ate without him. But Chase was a genius, the smartest person in that house, no matter what Mr. Davenport might claim. The proof of that was simply that he knew that there was something wrong when Leo didn’t come to breakfast, and when Tasha didn’t find him in his bedroom.

And of course, when everyone else didn’t seem to understand the severity of what that implied.

So Adam and Bree rolled their eyes and went downstairs to the lab, and then they came up without him but said he was on his way. What did that even mean? Leo was avoiding small talk now? Why? He loved to talk. Especially to his family.

Chase Davenport knew Leo Dooley. And Leo Dooley did not simply miss breakfast, or go on morning walks, or take the stairs instead of the elevator with his siblings, or hide in his room for a week, occasionally popping by as if knowing that if he didn't people might get suspicious.

Jokes on him, because now Chase was suspicious. He was more than suspicious, he was losing his mind. He was smart, the smartest being ever, bionically engineered to be that way, and yet he couldn’t figure out what was bothering his brother. Was it that he was truly dumb, or that he somehow still lacked the emotional depth to empathize with people? Or maybe, and even worse, were there things he didn't know about Leo?

Apparently there was.

When Chase stumbled out into the dark hallway, carefully walking past spare rooms he knew no one was inside of, he started hearing a cough. The cough became a coughing fit, getting louder and more strained, violent and yet muted by a lack of access to oxygen.

He booked it to the living room, only to see Leo, standing with one hand on the arm of the couch and the other clawing at his chest through the fabric of his t-shirt, his body shaking and racking with each cough.

The way Leo’s eyes flickered around him wildly, never fixating on a specific object was concerning enough once paired with how much his arm shook at the elbow extended between himself and the one thing he was holding onto to keep himself stable.

Leo’s thin but, as he remembered in a moment of panicked realization, BIONIC arm buckled beneath his weight as his coughing finally stopped, replaced with labored, inaccessible breaths as he began to fall to the floor.

Chase finally got his wits back before his brother could fully smack his head on the floor however, as he was by his side in a moment, his arms stretching around his torso and heaving him onto the couch, putting him on his side with his head tilted down, slightly off of the cushion and drooping toward the floor in case he might throw up. This action, however smart it had been, achieved a much scarier result as it led Chase to the discovery of blood coming from Leo’s mouth as one dripped onto the rug in between Chase’s feet.

He was immediately back down, crouched on the floor and gently cradling Leo’s unconscious head in his hands, scanning him for blood or injury or anything to make this make sense to the man that made sense of everything, except for, embarrassingly, this.

What the hell was wrong with him? Why was he coughing blood, why did he pass out, why the hell could Chase not get a read on what was wrong. Everything was showing up as normal, despite everything he had seen to the contrary

“Leo?” Chase finally tried, wanting his answer badly enough he was more than willing to risk waking his poor brother up, but Leo didn’t respond, his head only snapping back to the whims of gravity as Chase fretted over his neck trying to find a pulse.

He was alive, obviously he was alive, but Chase was panicking. This wasn’t right. This wasn’t adding up. The coughing he heard was in the hallway first, so why would Leo have gone through the hall to the living room? He would have had to pass Mr. Davenport’s room, so why… why didn’t he…

Why did Leo miss breakfast? Why didn’t he take the elevator? Why had he been hiding all week? Why was he trying to avoid Mr. Davenport and Tasha during a violent, concerning coughing fit?

Leo knows something that Chase does not. And that wasn’t right. That wasn’t natural.

Leo was hiding something.

Chase bounced back up, fully intending to race to Mr. Davenport’s room, shake him awake, and beg him to do something, to help Leo, but something stopped him. Leo clearly didn’t want Mr. Davenport to know about… whatever this was, otherwise he wouldn’t have gone out of his way.

So Chase stood there in the dark living room, only lit by the moonlight coming in through the windows, hearing only the sound of struggling, ragged breaths coming from his brother.

What was wrong with him? Not going to get help was stupid. But Leo was anything but, and Chase couldn’t bring himself to do something Leo clearly didn’t want, at least definitely not in the state he was in now. He was so weak, a shell of human skin twitching at knee-level.

So Chase did the only thing he thought he could, to put him into some bit of control.

-

Leo woke up, the debilitating pain from earlier having dissolved into sore spots all over his body. He slowly lifted his head, his neck aching from the odd angle he collapsed in. 

His chest screamed as he moved into an upright position, feeling like something reached in through his throat and scraped out everything that was inside his lungs with long claws. It was unpleasant, to say the least, but at least he woke up.

How many more days until he didn’t?

He knew his days were numbered, he’d known that ever since last Friday when… it all happened. And he was dying to talk about it, or do something about it.

But what could he do, exactly? What were his options? Sure, maybe he could blame all of this on Davenport for that stupid machine he made, that damn proton fuser that sealed his fate years ago. When he travelled to that parallel universe, the worst thing was that he was bionic and the FBI was after him. Or that his siblings were jerks.

This was worse. A lot worse. Because now, some stupid, insignificant rules and laws that he had no access to either then or now were commanding that he die, and what could he do with that? He was dying now.

He finally remembered that this time, he had not in fact fallen onto the couch, he had passed out next to it. So how was he on the couch, and had someone…

Oh dear god. Someone caught him.

“You’re awake now, huh?” A voice came from next to him. Leo whipped his head to see Chase walking from the kitchen toward him with a bowl in his hands.

“Chase, I can explain-”

“Just eat this.” Chase sat next to him on the couch and thrust the bowl into Leo’s arms. He pulled his legs on the couch and sat with them crossed, so that he could be fully facing his brother, who mimicked him.

They were sitting cross-legged, across from each other on the couch, both looking incredibly tired and scared, and Leo had a bowl of soup. “Did you… Chase did you just make me soup?”

Chase shrugged, almost defensively. “Yeah, so what? I like cooking. It’s specific, easy to understand. You have a recipe with exact measurements and- wait this isn’t about soup!” Chase’s voice was clearly annoyed at the end, but he was still speaking in hushed tones. That was good, this whole situation was showing that Chase at least understood that Leo wanted to keep this a secret. He had no idea why or how, but he was grateful. “Do you want to tell me what the hell happened?”

Leo avoided the question, swallowing a mouthful of soup. “What were you doing up so late?’

“Are you kidding me?!”

“Okay, okay,” Leo placated his brother. He didn’t like this. He promised himself he would do this like a Dooley. Suffer, but keep it to yourself. Quiet and alone.

This was no longer alone.

“Look, I don’t know where to start.”

“Start from the beginning then!” Chase sounded exasperated.

“Well, I met these three bionic siblings in the basement of-”

“Leo!”

Leo cleared his throat. He thought it was at least kind of funny. The truth was, he had no intention of telling Chase about the parallel universe from years ago, or the one from last week. How could he? They didn’t believe him back then.

There were some things he could tell him, but how to explain all of it? It sounds so ridiculous.

“Chase, I’m going to tell you something, but you have to promise not to tell anyone. Or to freak out.”

Chase’s face morphed into something dark. “Leo, you’re scaring me.”

“I’m dying.” There. Band-aid. You just got to rip it off, say it quickly, get it over with.

But that look, that look was something that wiggled its way into the corners of his brain. He would never forget how Chase looked in that moment, and it was crushing. That was supposed to be a part of the Dooley approach to dying, not having to see that look on anyone’s face. Especially not Chase’s.

Leo feebly held out the bowl. ‘Soup?” He offered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for the comments, honestly if I hadn't gotten those comments I would have just left this fic floating out in the AO3 abyss, so honestly they mean everything to me (and made me re-enjoy an old forgotten fandom of mine! Who would have thought?)


End file.
